The statute, Westminster 1, made it a misdemeanor to "ravish" a "maiden within age," whether with or without her consent. This module traces the shifting ways that the law has been defined, debated and deployed worldwide and from the Middle Ages to the present.Īn age of consent statute first appeared in secular law in 1275 in England as part of the rape law. Narrowly concerned with sexual violence, and with girls, originally, since the 19th century the age of consent has occupied a central place in debates over the nature of childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, and been drawn into campaigns against prostitution and child marriage, struggles to achieve gender and sexual equality, and the response to teenage pregnancy. Consequently, any one who has sex with an underage individual, regardless of the circumstances, is guilty of a crime.
In western law, the age of consent is the age at which an individual is treated as capable of consenting to sexual activity.